Where the Heart Is
by DoofusPrime
Summary: She was a child struck by a meteor.  A teen in a sibling superhero fighting force.  And, in the end, a villain.  A holiday look at Shego's past, family, and struggle for belonging.
1. Past

**Where the Heart Is**, by DoofusPrime

* * *

**Past**

XX

Although it was playtime, Susan Go was not in a playful mood.

The rest of the children were enjoying a break from their classes, skipping and cavorting around a playground where recess was held behind their small schoolhouse. It was a new school, where Susan Go had gone with her brothers – minus the twins, who were still too young for school – ever since they had moved to their new foster home . Susan had not made friends with any of the other children. She had heard whispers among her teachers that were peppered with words such as 'uncooperative' and 'antisocial', but she didn't care. The school was a dull place, the children boring and obnoxious.

Her brothers weren't as bad as the other kids, although the idyllic days spent at her old home with her siblings and parents were gone, along with her parents themselves. Ever since that meteor had hit the treehouse in which she once played with her brothers, sending flaming debris raining down on her parent's adjacent home, catching them by surprise. It had collapsed parts of the roof and spread quickly. Her parents didn't make it out in time.

Susan had no idea how she and her brothers had survived the meteor's direct impact - much less how they were imbued with the strange alterations that were beginning to develop in their bodies. The teachers had talked about puberty in health class before, but Susan was still a bit too young for that, and she had read enough to know puberty did not involve pulsating green fire. It was yet another way in which she and her brothers were different. Apart. Separated from the other children by an invisible chasm, growing wider by the day.

Across the chasm, Susan watched the other children play. Hopskotch on the blacktop, swinging from the jungle gym, digging in the sandbox. Madison was antisocial, like her, and she noticed him swinging alone on a swing set. The adjacent swings hung empty, and as one boy tried to grab one, Madison threw him a glare that sent him scampering away. Henry, who was the oldest of her brothers and already looking bulkier than any of the other children at the school, was doing one-handed push ups in the middle of the playground. Several female fans were gathered around him as they watched his physical feats.

A commotion began to rise in volume, coming from one corner of the playground where the blacktop ended and met with a grassy area dominated by the sandbox and a single large tree. Susan noticed two children beneath the tree, one of whom she recognized: Avery. She hadn't talked to him personally, but he had an eccentric and aggressive air that made him stand out among the other students. He looked bizarre, thought Susan. Scrawny, hook-nosed, a little hunchbacked. At the moment, despite his scrawny size, he seemed to be bullying another child.

"Lunch money!" shouted Avery. "I demand it, nowww!"

The girl squealed and shrank back against the force of Avery's demands, which were really not that forceful in Susan's opinion. She watched indifferently, along with several other children, as Avery began to push the girl, continuing to demand lunch money. Susan thought about her strange powers as she watched her two feuding classmates. She had been testing them recently. Exploring their effects. She began to think she was looking at a good opportunity.

"Hey Avery!" she said as she approached the two children beneath the tree.

Avery looked away from his bullying to see the new girl who was approaching him. He grinned, anticipating another potential source of lunch money.

"What do you want?"

Susan opened her mouth to speak -

"You leave her alone!"

She turned at the sound of the booming voice beside her. It was her brother, Henry. Trying to grab the spotlight, as usual. Henry nudged her aside with his considerable bulk as he approached Avery in an exaggeratedly masculine fashion, swaggering back and forth with each step.

"And what if I don't?" cackled Avery.

Henry cracked his knuckles and balled his hands into fists as he approached the tree, and Susan noticed a faint blue glow began to flicker around his body. Her brow went down, darkening her eyes in anger; she wasn't going to let him get in the way when she had been planning to test her own powers out first.

Susan raced past her brother and, not wanting to try something as boring as the punch that Henry would inevitably throw, she slashed at Avery in a clawing motion. She made sure to focus on the strange, faintly tingling feeling that had lurked deep within herself ever since she had clawed her way out of the wreckage of the treehouse. The feeling had increased over time, becoming more familiar, more controllable. As Susan's swipe came in contact with Avery, she marveled at the green glow that she had played with in the past, summoned to illuminate the private darkness of closets where she had hidden herself to test her abilities. Now it was out in the open. In broad daylight. Avery yelped and fell back as his shirt tore, his exposed skin unbearably hot.

"What was _that_?" he screeched.

"A taste of what you're going to get from me, evildoer!"

Henry had arrived at the scene seconds after his sister. Avery scrambled up from the ground and tried to throw his own punch, but he missed, only to find himself lifted bodily into the air. Avery feebly tried to hit Henry while caught in his vice-like grip, but ended up flying through the air as Henry threw him into the sandbox with a streak of blue energy. The other children laughed and pointed as Avery hit the ground, sending up a plume of sand, a pink shovel, and several surprised plastic army men.

"You'll pay for that!"

Avery was about to get up from the sandbox when the other children backed away nervously at the sight of Mr. Corkle, who had just come stomping out of the schoolhouse. He grabbed Avery and pulled him out of the sandbox while pointing an accusatory finger at Susan and Henry. Madison had joined his two siblings around the tree to see what was going on, and the teacher looked at him angrily as well.

"The Go family again, is it?" he said. "Always causing trouble. You two in particular," he said as he narrowed his eyes at Susan and Madison. Madison stuck out his tongue, while Susan stared at him impassively. "And this time you're involved too, Henry – I'm disappointed! Recess is over, everyone. Everyone except Avery and the Gos, return to your classroom."

The children groaned and went inside as Mr. Corkle stood with the troublemakers. He shook his head, looking like he was about to let out another one of his long winded lectures. Susan didn't care what happened – Avery had been the one at fault anyway – and the newfound usefulness she saw in her powers was giving her an intoxicating rush of self-confidence. She winked at Mr. Corkle and let her hand light up with just enough shimmering green that the teacher noticed it immediately.

While she was not a big girl, and hadn't started growing at the same intimidating rate as Henry, Mr. Corkle noticed the strange energy pouring in a haze from Susan's clenched fist, and his stern expression seemed to soften into something more tentative. Maybe even frightened. He looked at his young charges for another moment, silent, until he turned around and went back into the school without another word, leaving them alone on the playground.

"That was weird," said Avery.

Henry stepped forward and flexed his pectoral muscles threateningly. "I think you should go back inside before we have any more trouble," he told his schoolyard foe.

"Don't think this is over!"

Henry watched as Avery disappeared inside of the schoolhouse, and then turned to his sister.

"I have to say, I didn't think you had it in you, sis," he said as he gave Susan a slap on the shoulder. "Defending that girl against an evildoer like Avery – I'm impressed!"

"Why do you keep calling him an evildoer?"

"Dunno," said Henry. "It just seems appropriate."

Madison stared at his sister and brother. Although neither of them were displaying any of the bright, colorful energy that had been emanating as they attacked Avery, he had seen it in action a moment ago. He and his two young twin brothers, Walter and Wendell, were only beginning to get a handle on their own powers. His younger brothers had barely begun speaking, much less exercising whatever powers they now had, but Madison had seen faint traces of purple when he concentrated on the strange feelings he had developed ever since the meteor strike. Sometimes he thought maybe he gained or lost an inch or two in the course of his concentration.

"That was pretty cool," he admitted. "We're like freaks or something. But in a good way."

Henry nodded. "Like superheroes," he suggested.

"We're so much more awesome than the other kids!"

"Now now," said Henry as he chuckled and gave his younger brother a pat on the head. "Let's not think we're better than anyone just because of the gifts we were given at such a high price. The bigger the ego, the smaller the man."

Susan snorted at Henry's comment. She found herself leaning more towards Madison's interpretation of their powers, even if he was insufferable most of the time. Maybe being different wasn't always a bad thing, after all. Out of the horrible circumstances that meteor had brought with it, something truly amazing might take root and grow.

XX

Go City was not _the_ windy city, but it was windy enough. On a day late in December, it was windier than usual, and cold air whipped between skyscrapers as it made its way downtown until it reached the lake bordering the city. Unruly waves crashed violently against a collection of jagged black rocks, which made up the small island on which Go Tower stood like a sentinel, looking out over the city it protected. The lake's restless waves were the only sound heard around the tower. But after a moment, another sound began to grow louder, rumbling over the waves, as a jet approached from the city. Following the path of the wind, the jet touched down on an extending ramp that unfurled from the top of the tower.

Inside of Go Tower, the silence was much more deafening. The control room was empty, and a massive viewing screen overlooked the round table where Team Go normally planned its missions. The control room was nondescript, sparsely decorated, and colored in a combination of blue and purple – the result of Hego and Mego fighting over which color was more intrinsic to Team Go. One of the few decorations in the room was a holiday wreath placed in the middle of the mission table, with a red candle in its center.

Beyond the silence of the room, the rumble of the jet landing above the tower could be faintly heard inside. Moments later, voices echoed through the room, growing louder as they drew closer.

_Don't understand how you could..._

The control room's silence was broken by the muffled sound of a distant door opening.

_...not that big a deal, I was just..._

The main door to the control room itself slid open with a pleasant whir, and the much less pleasant sound of arguing flooded the room as Team Go entered from their most recent mission. Unlike most of their missions, this one had clearly not ended well.

"I'm trying to understand, Shego," said Hego as he led the way into the room. "I keep hoping that maybe you just got the mission from the Mayor before we did and arrived on the scene early, or maybe you took it upon yourself to try to hog the glory once again."

"No way," said Mego. "I heard her talking to him! They were talking about criminal stuff!"

Hego looked pleadingly at his sister as the Wegos trailed behind them into the control room, the door automatically closing behind them. "Shego, is this true? What were you and Aviarius talking about?"

"It's all just a big misunderstanding," said Shego. "I was just trying to get some intel, that's all. I don't see what's the big-"

Just as they had entered the room and gathered around the table, Team Go's argument was interrupted by a futuristic whooshing sound as the viewing screen's black surface flickered into life, revealing the image of Aviarius. Team Go's arch nemesis took a look around Go Tower's control room from the viewing screen before noticing Team Go in the middle of the room.

"Ah, you're all here," said Aviarius. "Shego, sorry to interrupt, but I was hoping you'd be back by now – I wanted to give you a few more pointers on how best to embark on the path of villainy, continuing the discussion we were just having before your brothers so rudely interrupted us."

"Not now, Aviarius!"

Shego flipped open a control panel on the round table, mashing buttons angrily in an attempt to turn the screen off. How her brothers had not noticed the blatant security risk posed by the viewing screen, she had no idea. Their enemies were accessing it constantly. It took several moments of mashing while Aviarius watched bemusedly before Shego finally found the right combination to disconnect the viewing screen. She looked up to make sure it was black again before turning back to her brothers.

"Okay, so, I guess you caught me," she laughed.

Hego slammed his fist on the table, partly in anger, but partly in frustration at hearing something he was almost unable to wrap his head around. "My own sister, fraternizing with the enemy!" he shouted.

"What did you expect?" asked Mego. "She's been acting fishy for a long time now – she's always been the black sheep on this team, if you ask me."

"_Green_ sheep," corrected Wendell, as Walter nodded in agreement.

Hego tried to calm himself as he grappled with what he and his brothers had just seen. Shego had been missing that morning, which was not unusual as she often visited Go City without letting her brothers know, and generally did whatever she wanted if she wasn't on a mission. They had gotten a call from the Mayor about Aviarius robbing a bank, which was also not unusual. It was even a bit uninspired for Aviarius. Hego and his brothers had arrived a bit late to the scene of the crime as they had spent some time trying to get in contact with their missing sister before giving up, hoping to rendezvous with her later. The last thing he had expected to find upon trailing Aviarius to Go Mountain, however, was his sister and arch enemy chatting it up like a pair of old friends.

"Shego, why were you talking to him about villainy? I refuse to believe that you've turned to the dark side. I know how you like to do your own thing, and you've always a little flippant about Team Go's protocol, but turning _evil_? How could you stab us in the back like this?"

Shego groaned. "And here it is! The holier-than-thou attitude, always telling everybody else what to do, always thinking you're an authority on everything. Mr. 'I do everything by the book.' But you know what's funny, Hego? You're a hypocrite!"

Hego sputtered indignantly for a moment. "Explain yourself!" he managed to spit out.

"You talk about good and evil all the time, but do you really think you're all that good? You're gonna tell me – you're gonna tell any of us – you're just doing the whole hero schtick out of the kindness of your heart? It was all about attention, from the very beginning. You're full of yourself, Hego. And I'm willing to bet all those classy parties over at the Mayor's mansion has a little bit to do with it, too. Do you know how many pictures I've seen of you with a girl on each arm, plastered on the front page of gossip magazines any time I'm walking around downtown? I bet you're telling them all about how good you are, huh?"

Although insinuations along the line of Shego's tirade had been thrown at Hego in the past, he had never heard it so directly. It stung, and it floored him briefly. Sometimes, in moments of rare self-awareness, Hego was aware that he could be fairly narcissistic. He knew that Shego's accusations were not far off from the truth. But while Hego was narcissistic, he was not stupid. Or at least he was smart enough to realize that Shego was sidestepping the issue.

"You can criticize me all you want, Shego, but my character has nothing to do with what we just saw in Go City. Aviarius is a bad person, and he's put innocent people in danger in the past. You've seen it! We've all seen it! Tarnishing my reputation doesn't change that. Moral relativism isn't going to fly in Go Tower, let me tell you!"

"She probably learned it in some college philosophy class," sneered Mego. "Maybe it was an elective for that precious child development degree she was getting while we were actually trying to do something practical."

Shego made a move as if she was about to leap across the control room table at her brother, fists flaming, but Hego stepped in front of Mego in an attempt to placate his sister.

"You want another reason I'm tired of Team Go?" she said. "There you go. It's all about Team Go, all the time! Anytime I try to do my own thing, anytime I try to live my own life, you all have something to say about it. I wanted to get a degree so I had something outside of our team, and it was like I was stabbing you guys in the back already. The constant whining, I swear! It's like we have to be all about the team, we have to follow these rules all the time. Most of which were made by you, Hego."

Shego turned to Mego, who was partially hiding behind his older brother after sensing that his comment about Shego's time in college had almost led to serious green plasma burns.

"And you," she said to Mego, "I know you agree with me about Hego. You have your problems with him too, and you don't like all the rules any more than I do, but you're a pushover! And you take every opportunity you can get to give me a hard time because – well, I don't know. I thought it was because I was a girl for a while, because you felt threatened at how I'm stronger than you-"

"Excuse me?" interrupted Mego.

"You heard me. Me being a girl is part of it, and it's part of why you're condescending to me, Hego. But," she said as she returned her attention to her purple-clad brother, "I think it's more than that. You're just a jerk. You're a jerk to all of us, but you're the most jealous of me. You have to limit it around Hego because when it comes right down to it, he's in charge of Team Go and you don't want to rock the boat."

Hego paced around the table as he listened to his sister's tirade. "You're still rationalizing," he said. "Even if you have such a problem with all of us, which you never communicated-"

"I did," said Shego, "but none of you listen."

"-nevertheless, that doesn't explain you plotting or whatever you were doing with Aviarius."

"I was just talking to him," said Shego. "He's a total dork anyway, and he doesn't have that much to teach about anything."

"Teach? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, come on," said Shego. "Why do you think I've been skipping missions lately? Why do you think I disappear more and more often? I'm tired of all of this! I don't want to be a superhero anymore!"

"But villainy?" pressed Hego. "Why would you choose the exact opposite? Why choose evil?"

"It's not just a black and white-"

Hego raised an eyebrow, and Shego faltered. She knew what he was getting at. She truly didn't believe it was black and white, but then, she was going to a very dark shade of gray, and there was no rationalizing that away. Shego gave up. It was time to tell the whole truth.

"Because it's fun," she said. "Because being the good guy is boring."

She leaned forward, placing her palms on the table and peering at her older brother as a malicious glint flashed in her eyes.

"Because I _like_ it."

The Wegos stared at each other in shock. Hego stared at his sister in shock, while Mego stared at nothing in particular, looking fairly satisfied that he had known it all along. While he hadn't, he probably had a better idea than Hego did. Partly it was because Mego was more cynical. Partly it was because Hego had had more faith in his sister's conviction to the cause.

"I don't see how she can stay in Team Go," said Mego. "Not when she just admits it like that. What are we supposed to do?"

Shego waved her hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it, bro. I told you I was tired of Team Go, and I've been waiting for an opportunity like this for a while. I won't bother you guys anymore, so you can have fun playing your silly little games here. I'm out."

Shego was about to leave the control room when Mego cleared his throat.

"If you're out, you have to sign the papers."

It took Shego a moment to realize what he was talking about.

"The papers – what? You're not talking about what I think you're talking about, are you?"

Mego nodded silently.

The Wegos were too young to remember, but Hego's brow wrinkled sadly as he realized what papers Mego was thinking of. Shego rolled her eyes and stormed wordlessly out of the control room, heading towards the hallway connected to Team Go's individual living quarters. Her room was at the end of the hall, and she burst through the door, headed straight for the dresser beside her bed. She knew what papers Mego wanted. She was surprised she had remembered them as quickly as she did, after so many years had passed.

Clothes were in the bottom drawers, and in the top dresser drawer, Shego kept assorted knick knacks and supplies she had collected over the years. She did not own many personal possessions, and it only took moments of impatient rustling through assorted junk thrown into her top dresser before she reached a familiar set of papers at the bottom. She pulled them out of the drawer and placed them on top the dresser. She knew there would be a matching set of papers somewhere in Hego's room – probably framed on a wall somewhere – as well as Mego and the Wego's rooms. She read the title, written in black pen, printed neatly across the top of the first page:

**Team Go Protocols and Procedures**

Below the title was a mission statement. Below that, several pages of needlessly verbose rules and regulations, most of them related to Hego's own conceptions of how a superhero team needed to function. Shego flipped through the pages impatiently, passing one page where, long ago, she had signed her name in sparkling green ink to induct herself into Team Go. She ignored the page - even after all these years, she remembered what she was looking for. She only needed what was on the very back page. She reached it, and stopped for a moment as she stared down at the blank line drawn near the bottom.

_I forfeit my place in Team Go for one of the reasons detailed in Subsection III, Part 4. Signature: __

There was nothing legal about the document. It was handwritten long ago by Hego, although she couldn't remember if she was holding the original or just a copy of it. The last page – particularly the ending section, dealing with a member of Team Go wanting to quit – was the only part that was tailored specifically for her.

She wondered if she really wanted it. She had lied to Hego earlier, after all. Not about being tired of Team Go, that was very true, but about waiting for an opportunity to quit. She really hadn't thought about it extensively either way – all she knew was that she increasingly believed the life of a superhero was not for her, and the seductive whisper of villainy had been getting louder and louder as they went on more missions. Her time off for college had increased her isolation from her siblings, and once she completed her degree and came back into the fold, she had found herself paying more attention to the enemies they fought as time went on. Noticing their attitudes, their schemes. Wondering what their lives were like. What it was like to have no rules, no obligations.

"Shego."

The sound of her name made Shego turn to her bedroom door. Hego was standing in the frame, almost bigger than the frame itself, wearing a concerned frown as he watched her.

"You don't have to do this. Not at this time of year! You're a valuable member of Team Go – I think you've just lost your bearings a little, seduced by the siren song of Aviarius and his evil ways. You're one of the good guys, Shego."

Shego listened quietly to her brother. She turned her gaze away, and looked down into the top drawer of her dresser again. A single pen had rolled into the empty space where she had pushed aside the junk in the drawer to find the old papers. A plastic goblin was attached to the back of the pen, coated with a layer of dust and fuzz, and the pen itself was decorated in her favorite colors since childhood: green and black. She picked up the pen and pushed the little goblin, clicking the button it was covering and extending the pen's writing tip. She wondered if it still had ink in it.

The pen traveled over the paper, and its tip rested on the signature line of the last page for just a moment. Then, Shego wrote her name in cursive across the line. The name sparkled in neon green ink, bringing back a faint memory of when she had first signed the papers as part of Hego's informal ceremony to join Team Go.

_Susan Go_, she read silently. The pen still worked after all these years. It was done.

XX

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_**Notes** - Hope you guys liked chapter 1. It will be three chapters total, and the holiday stuff is most prominent in the last chapter. I'll probably post again on Wednesday and Friday._

_I noticed that Aviarius was listed as "unknown, possibly fifties" on the KP wiki, which surprised me, although he has other stats that are clearly just made up. I don't remember his age mentioned in the show, and I always thought he was similar in age to Shego or Hego for some reason; perhaps it's just that I am reminded of Zim when I hear his voice due to the voice actor. Anyway, I obviously treated him as being similar in age to Hego in this story, so do me a favor and grant me a little suspension of disbelief on that point if my view is weirder than I thought, hehe._

_ Oh, and in case anyone actually watches the show, I also wrote my first _Glee_ fic today called "Santana's Little Helper", which apparently spent about 2 hours on the front page before being pushed off by the sheer volume of stories for that show, haha. But check it out if you're interested._


	2. Present

**Present**

XX

The Go siblings listened from the family room as their foster mother spoke on the telephone in the hallway, the tenor of her voice rising in anger for a moment before she slammed the phone down into its receiver. Susan knew who Mrs. Cooley was talking to on the phone, and why her steps were so loud and authoritative as she stomped into the family room. The twins looked oblivious to whatever was going on, and Susan and Madison were both indifferent. Susan noticed that even her older brother didn't look as chastened as Susan would have expected, considering they were all sent home from school early.

"You should have heard poor Mr. Corkle!" said Mrs. Cooley as she stood in front of the couch and looked down at Susan and her brothers, hands propped angrily against her waist. She lifted a hand to wag a finger at Susan and Madison. "I don't understand why you two have to cause me so much trouble – and this time I hear you were involved too, Henry?"

"It's not what it sounds like," said Henry. "We were just trying to help someone."

"He says you got in a fight, and that _you_, Henry, threw some boy straight into a sandbox."

Mrs. Cooley paused, her finger frozen in mid-wag, and leaned a little closer to her foster children after looking around as if to make sure that no one was going to overhear her. Her husband was at work, and there was no one else in the house, but one couldn't be too careful about such things.

"And what's more," she said in voice barely above a whisper, "Mr. Corkle said he saw strange things happening when he looked out the window. He said he saw a blue aura coming from you, Henry, and a green one around you, Susan. I think we know what he's talking about."

"So what?" asked Susan. "What's he gonna do about it?"

"Don't give me lip, young lady! He could suspend you – he could expel you! I've given all of you a home out of the kindness of my heart, and you repay me by telling me strange stories about meteors and magical powers and other inappropriate ideas, and you terrorize your poor teacher just to give me more gray hair, I suppose. I don't know what you did to give him such strange ideas, but-"

"Oh come on," said Susan. "You've seen it! You've seen our powers yourself!"

"Who knows what I saw! Some trick of the light, maybe. I don't know why you children do this to me – what if I gave you up? What if you were given to new foster parents? Do you really think they'd be as understanding as Bill and I have been? You don't know how good you have it here!"

Madison dropped his head back on the couch, as if falling asleep at the sound of his foster mother's voice "Oh, can it lady," he told her.

"Well I never! Where did you learn to say such things?"

Mrs. Cooley made as if to leave the room, but stopped and swiveled back towards the couch at the last moment.

"I'll be letting Bill know about this when he gets home. I don't want to see any of you doing anything strange or particularly colorful from now on – I'll have none of that in this house! Just try to act more normal, or else you'll be in real trouble next time I hear about anything like this happening."

Mrs. Cooley stomped out of the room. Wendell and Walter looked antsy, ready to leap off of the couch and begin chasing each other around the family room, but Henry looked over his shoulder to make sure their foster mother was gone before he got up from his seat and motioned for his siblings to follow him.

"Where are we going?" asked Madison as they followed Henry towards the stairway.

"To my room. I have something to show you guys."

Judging by the sound of a car squealing out of the driveway, Mrs. Cooley had left the house. Susan felt her interest rising as she followed Henry into his bedroom and watched as he rooted around under his bed. Henry had his own room, as he was the most well-behaved of the group. Susan and her brothers shared a second bedroom, which she found quite awkward. Just as her interest was melting back into boredom, Henry ripped a handful of loose-leaf papers out from beneath the bed with a triumphant shout.

"Take a look at these!" he said.

Henry seemed to have several copies of the same packet in his hands, which he passed out to his sister and brothers. Susan looked over the stapled sheet of papers, flipping through the pages as she read her older brother's carefully printed handwriting. The writing was overwrought and needlessly obtuse, like Henry himself, but the title of the papers made it obvious what they were for. Henry had been reading one too many superhero comics before going to sleep at night, thought Susan.

"How does it look?" he said. "Team Go has a nice ring to it, right? I was thinking of Team Henry, but I decided my leadership role didn't need to be that obvious – actions speak louder than words, after all."

"How nice of you," said Susan.

"Thanks, sis."

The twins could not read yet, so they each threw their papers in the air with a laugh and watched their other siblings read. Madison flipped through the papers, his face harsh and mocking at first, but as he read the papers, his features softened. As ridiculous as his older brother could be, he was onto something. Something big.

"How could we pull off anything like this with those jerks around?" asked Madison, referring to their foster parents.

"We don't have to stay here forever," said Henry. "I've been doing some research, and I'm old enough to be legal guardians for all of you now. We can leave and take care of ourselves if we want to – all of us, together, as a team."

"How is this Team Go idea of yours gonna make any money?" asked Madison.

"Like I said, I've been doing the research, and this superhero business isn't just a comic book pipe dream! There are all kinds of supervillains out there, even other teams of superheroes – some of them make a good living that way. We could charge for our services, or we could find a city that's having trouble with crime and villainy, one that wants to act as a patron and give us funding to fight crime. There are a number of options."

Susan had to admit that Henry's ideas were interesting to say the least, although she was surprised that he hadn't brought them up before. "What's with all these pie-in-the-sky plans all of a sudden?" she asked.

"I've been thinking about it for a while," said Henry, "ever since I started getting control of my powers. And I've seen what the rest of you can do. Your green plasma powers, for instance. And Madison, I've seen you changing size before. Even the twins – I don't think they realized what they were doing, but just last week I saw them making copies of themselves."

Wendell frowned. "I remember," he said. "I thought I drank too much apple juice!"

"All these powers," said Henry, his excitement rising as he motioned for his siblings to move closer and join him in a circle, "all these powers can be used for good. For justice! I became convinced just this afternoon, Susan, when you and I stopped Avery from bullying that child. Tell me you didn't get a rush from that! Tell me you weren't thrilled by the swift application of lady justice's boot on Avery's villainous posterior!"

Susan had been thrilled by the events of that afternoon, it was true, but she quickly began to realize that the reasons for her excitement were not the same ones driving Henry's enthusiasm. Even when they had both attacked Avery in the schoolyard, she could tell they were not doing it for the same reasons. Henry was definitely interested in justice. In righting wrongs, enforcing the rules, and being the center of attention while he did it. But Susan was not at all certain she cared about any of that – not the way her older brother did.

When Susan had seen Avery bullying that girl, she had barely even noticed his victim. Her attention had been glued on Avery. All the times she had tested her strange green glowing hands in the past, it had been in the privacy of a closet, or sometimes a deserted alley, swiping at trash cans. But Avery had been a test. A real target. He had been asserting his dominance in that schoolyard, and by taking him down, Susan would have asserted hers. If it wasn't for Henry butting in, she would have wiped the floor with Avery – or asphalt, to be specific. She would have been the undisputed king of the schoolyard, able to get whatever she wanted.

There was something else beyond that, too. She would have taken on Avery even if there was no one else to see it. Even if it was just the two of them, alone. When she had seen him bullying the girl, she had smelled a fight in the air, and she wanted to be a part of it. To test herself, to best an opponent – she just wanted to fight. To win.

"So what do you guys think?"

Henry flipped to a page towards the middle of his own packet and pointed to a signature line where his siblings could sign, officially becoming a part of Team Go. He nodded, his mouth an open grin, as he encouraged his sister and brothers to take the offer. Susan looked down at her own packet. It was open to the last page, showing another signature line in the event that she wanted to quit the team. Henry was thorough, all right. She flipped back to the joining clause and looked hard at the blank line.

"Ever since that meteor hit us," said Henry, "I thought it was destiny."

Susan felt her eyes flinch with annoyance as she heard her older brother speak. The way he spoke about destiny bothered her – what happened to her parents was destiny? Being separated from other children, mutated into freaks, was destiny? Henry viewed things in a warped way sometimes. But she couldn't deny that while she had been unhappy about her powers when she first discovered them, she was rapidly warming up to them. She could feel a world of possibilities just around the corner, waiting to be clutched in her glowing hands.

"Where are you going?" asked Henry as his sister got up and walked to the bedroom door.

"I'm going to go think about whether I should sign this or not. Duh."

Susan went into the bedroom she shared with her other three brothers and opened a chest filled with her private belongings. She wanted a little privacy to think about the decision, but she already knew she would join. Her brothers got on her nerves sometimes – Henry and Madison in particular – and she could tell that Henry would be insufferable if she didn't nip his idea about group leadership in the bud. Despite that, the idea was interesting. Exploring her powers further, maybe even using them in battle. Living by her own rules, and getting out from under the roof of her intolerable foster parents. It was too tempting to resist.

"I'm telling you, Susan, this is what we were meant to do."

Susan looked back to see her older brother standing in the door frame. He had followed her out of his room – too enthusiastic to give her a moment's peace and quiet. As annoying as he was, Susan couldn't help but feel affected by his mood. It was contagious. There was even something rebellious about it, about getting away from their current situation and going out on their own, but she knew Henry probably wasn't looking at it that way.

"Once we become Team Go, we can all count on each other. We'll stick together – we're family, after all."

"Yeah, yeah."

Susan found the item she was looking for in the small wooden chest: her favorite green pen. A wiggly green plastic goblin was affixed to its top, and she wrote her name on the signature line in sparkling green ink. Maybe Henry was right. Maybe it was her destiny.

_ Susan Go_, she read as she finished writing. It was done.

XX

A chilling wind blasted through the streets of Middleton, shaking the bare branches of sidewalk trees with its onslaught. Shego watched it from the coffee shop window with an involuntary shiver. She knew she would have to return to her hotel before long. But for now, she wanted to wring as much warmth as she could from the little shop before leaving.

It was getting a little late, and the lone barista at the front counters watched the green woman, who was the only customer remaining in the shop. Seeing as it was Christmas Eve, the barista wanted to close up as soon as possible and go home, as he didn't want to be working there in the first place.

"Would you like anything else?" the barista asked as he approached Shego's table. Shego looked up and shook her head silently before returning to her cup of coffee, stirring it absently with a spoon. She had gotten his hint loud and clear, but she didn't care if he was waiting on her.

A couple of weeks had passed since she left Go City, Go Tower, and Team Go behind. The Go life, in summary. A couple of weeks she had spent, moving on to the unknown. Go Tower had been her home for years, where she lived and worked with her siblings, and she did not know where to go or what to do if she no was no longer a part of that team. She had been staying in hotels since then, using up what little money she had taken with her on leaving the tower. The money was almost gone. It would have been gone even faster if she didn't steal most of what she needed to fill out the duffel bag of personal possessions she had taken with her from Go Tower.

Shego had been traveling from town to town looking at job openings ever since she left Go City, but it was apparent almost immediately that real jobs didn't appeal to her. She had never had a real job, and didn't really want one if she could avoid it. The idea of working a cash register or mopping a floor was mundane. It was insulting. After what she had done with her brothers – what she had seen? And with the powers she possessed? There was no way she could start from the bottom.

Fortunately, she already had a good idea of what she wanted to do. And what was more, she had an opportunity. A possible opportunity, anyway. One which had brought her to Middleton.

Shego sipped her hot coffee and looked away from the window, tired of seeing the freezing wind that would be attacking her as soon as she left the shop. Instead, she turned her attention to the newspaper unfolded on the table beneath her. _Villains Weekly_. It was amazing, the kinds of things they printed in newspapers. And it wasn't just newspapers – there were magazines, websites, and clubs devoted to supervillainy, mad science, and even the superhero lifestyle that Shego had rejected. She had even been interviewed for a couple of magazine articles herself when she was still part of the team.

This particular newspaper did not interest her, with the exception of the classified ads in the back. She looked at the job offer she had circled earlier that morning with her sparkling green pen, which she had taken from Go Tower along with the money, some changes of clothing, and a scattering of other personal possessions stuffed into the duffel bag sitting beside her little table. _Sidekick needed_, read the ad. _Req. martial arts skills, no sass. Exciting villainy opportunities – apply in person at Middleton!_

An address was written at the bottom of the ad, along with a string of indecipherable acronyms that Shego assumed were related to the job description, but shortened to the point of unintelligibility in order to save on the per-word ad charge. She doubted that she had the requirements needed for the position in terms of lacking sass, but she had martial arts skills leaking out of every pore. Not to mention her unique gift of otherworldly, meteor-derived skills.

As she finished her coffee and noticed the time on the coffee shop's wall clock, Shego decided it was time to go in for a personal interview. She got up from her table and folded the newspaper, stuffing it into her duffel bag, which she picked up and slung over her shoulder. Before going out the door, however, the barista stepped out from behind the counter and raised a hand.

"Excuse me lady, but are you gonna pay for that coffee?"

"Oh, uh, no. No cash on me. Tough luck, kid."

She did have some cash on her, but it was only enough for a couple more nights at hotels – after that, she would need to get into gear and figure out what to do, if this next opportunity didn't work out for her.

"That's alright," the barista said. "We also accept-"

The door closed in his face, bells tinkling on the wreath attached to its glass panel. Shego stepped outside of the shop and into the cold night. A strong gust of wind hit her, cold enough to make her face feel like it had just been slapped. She grimaced as she walked down the block towards the bus stop – fortunately, the bus was already there, and Shego got on just before the driver pulled the doors shut, finding a seat as the bus went into motion.

"Hey lady, you have green skin! 'Tis the season, right?"

Shego looked over at the man sitting across the aisle and smiled as she lit one of her hands into flame. The man's face was illuminated in green light, and he shrank back in shock at the sight of the strange force coming from the woman across from him. He turned his head towards the front of the bus and backed all the way to the window, whistling in an attempt to appear innocuous.

Shego ignored the man and looked out the window as Middleton buildings passed her by. The bus traveled through the tightly packed buildings in downtown Middleton. It was a large town, although it was nothing compared to Go City. Eventually the business districts were replaced by suburbs as the bus traveled onwards, weaving its way through the town.

Soft light poured from the windows of suburban homes, and Shego could sometimes catch glimpses of families inside as she passed. Cars were parked outside many of the homes, although the bus passed one with a blue scooter leaning against the garage doors. She watched as another house passed by – quite a large one – and caught a brief glimpse of a girl with red hair looking out the window, meeting her eyes for a split second. The bus traveled on, and Shego sat back, deep in thought. All of those houses were filled with families. Enjoying each other's company, cozy and safe from the cold weather outside.

Thoughts of the Go Tower she had left behind swirled up from the depths of her mind, and she wondered what her brothers were doing. If they missed her. She doubted it, and she told herself that she didn't miss them. Things had been simmering there for a long time. Slowly coming to a boil. When they finally caught her with Aviarius, the jig was up. The chasm between her and her brothers was final, complete, and she knew there was no jumping back to the other side.

Aviarius had offered her a job as his sidekick, but she had not been interested. He was a second-rate villain, one who liked hearing the sound of his own voice. He had nothing particularly useful to teach her, although he had taught her one thing: she was no superhero. She no longer belonged with her brothers. Maybe there was nowhere she belonged. A nomad in green and black, doomed to travel alone on the earth.

The bus had passed her destination before she noticed where she was and jerked on the rope hanging above her. The driver brought the bus to a halt, and Shego got off with a curt nod, returning to the harsh wind. She was on the very edges of the suburbs, and judging by the address on the mailbox in front of her, she was only a few houses away. Shego pressed onwards until she reached the house the bus had passed, fishing the newspaper out of her pocket and looking at the address on the ad one more time to make sure.

This was it.

It was a house like any other. She stepped up onto the porch, knocking loudly on the front door and ringing the doorbell right after, not wanting to spend more than a moment outside if she didn't have to. After far too long a wait, the door opened and a very strange looking man poked his head out. A man with blue skin, and a scar below his left eye.

"Yes?" he said. "Can I help you?"

"I'm here for the sidekick position in the _Villains Weekly_ newspaper."

"Oh yes," said the man with a cough. "Um, I regret to inform you that the position is already filled, as you can see."

He stepped aside and gave Shego a glimpse into the house. She noticed another man, younger than the blue-skinned one she was talking to, sitting on a couch with a briefcase placed beside him. He was smartly dressed, business suit and tie, sporting a close-clipped military haircut and a brawny frame. More importantly, he was apparently the new sidekick of this blue-skinned supervillain she had been hoping to work for. The blue-skinned man looked promising – the scar definitely added to his villainous image – but it didn't matter. She was too late.

"Uh, thanks anyway," she said.

"You're very welcome. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!"

The man shut the door as Shego picked up her duffel bag again and left the porch, walking back out into the street. She saw a bus stop in the distance and began to walk towards it – the small glass enclosure would provide at least a little relief from the chilly, blustering wind.

Looking into regular jobs had been a bust, and now her first foray into supervillainy had failed as well. Shego knew there were other advertisements in the rolled up paper she had returned to her pocket, but something about this one had given her a good feeling. She had no idea why, but she had gone to Middleton after seeing it, picking it out from the others.

She could follow leads in other places, but the available jobs were scattered across the country – there were enough to fill the classifieds for a villain newspaper, but jobs in the business of villainy weren't all that common on the whole. She would have to leave Middleton again, and her money was almost out. Shego approached the bus station, the brutal cold pounding against her face, and she felt a solitary tear well up in her eye, only to dissipate in the freezing air.

It was just the wind irritating her eyes, she thought.

She reached the bus stop, where she would have to wait maybe fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour for another bus. But she stopped just before sitting on the metal bench inside the glass walls. She did not want to take the bus to a new place. She did not want to keep doing this. She had been uprooted for too long, and she needed someplace to stay – someplace where she could stop searching aimlessly. She was tired of searching. What was more, she was not part of Team Go anymore. She did not play by the rules.

She was Shego, and she took what she wanted.

Shego knocked on the door and rang the doorbell a second time after returning from down the road, and this time, the blue-skinned man answered more quickly. He frowned as he saw the same woman outside his door again. "Look," he said, "I suppose I should have supplied a phone number on the ad, but you're too late for-"

Shego brushed past him and entered the house. The ex-military looking man in the business suit was still sitting on the couch, and a collection of papers were spread on the coffee table in front of him, taken from the open briefcase beside him. As far as she could tell, he was finalizing employment papers with the blue-skinned man. Shego dumped her duffel bag unceremoniously on a nearby chair as she looked around the room while the two men inside stared at her, nonplussed. She did not notice them. Instead, she idly wondered why a supervillain would be living in such a regular looking, non-villainous home.

"What's with the get up?" she asked the blue-skinned man, motioning to the room. "Is this your lair?"

"I am between lairs at the moment," said the man.

"What's your name?"

"Drew Li – Drakken. Doctor Drakken. May I ask why you are-"

"I'm your new sidekick."

Drakken gave a faint nod, not in agreement but for lack of any better idea of how to react. The large man on the couch raised an eyebrow, looking increasingly annoyed that his new job was suddenly being usurped by a green-skinned woman half his size.

"I already have a sidekick," said Drakken. "He's right there," he said as he pointed to the man on the couch nervously. "Can't you see him? Am I hallucinating?"

Shego glanced at the man indifferently before picking up the papers on the coffee table in a crumpled handful. The man let out a cry of protest as she produced a fiery green burst of energy that vaporized the papers, leaving a film of ash that she clapped off. The man stood up, his irritation turning to anger.

"You," she said. "Get out."

"I don't _think_ so, " the man growled.

Drakken took a few steps back as man made a running jump at Shego, but she caught him by the leg and whirled him around, sending him crashing into a cupboard against the wall. Fine china and glassware shattered as the man hit the cupboard, creating a man-shaped dent in the wood and glass paneling. He got up with a snarl and charged Shego again, throwing a punch that she easily blocked, a kick that she barely had to sidestep to avoid. The man's martial arts skills weren't utterly incompetent, but Shego was out of his league. She gave him ten seconds, at best.

A flurry of punches hemmed the man in, pressing him towards the door which still hung open after her entrance. The man began to fight more desperately, and before he even knew what had happened, Shego gave him a bone-crunching kick in the chest that sent him flying out the door, rolling off the porch and onto the slate walkway in the front yard. She stood in the doorway and looked out as the man got up, more slowly this time, and with a groan.

"Sorry," she said. "Better luck next time. There's a bus stop down the street."

She slammed the door and walked back into the room. After a few half-hearted thumps on the door, no more noise came from outside; the man had decided his new job wasn't worth the effort, apparently. Drakken gave his new guest a nervous grin as she sat down on the couch and made herself comfortable.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Su – Shego."

"Sushego? That's a strange name."

"No, just Shego. And besides, so's Drakken," she said as she looked at the room more closely. It didn't look much like a proper supervillain's lair, but it would do. It was warm, it was a place to stay. And it was new start. She noticed a Christmas tree in the corner of the room, although it was undecorated. Apparently, even blue-skinned supervillains celebrated the holidays. Or maybe he was a mad scientist. Shego couldn't be sure.

"So what's on the agenda, Drakken?"

Drakken sat down in a chair not occupied by Shego's duffel bag, still trying to make sense of the fact that the strange woman sitting across from him had just forced his other brand new sidekick out of the house and seemed to have appointed herself to the position without an interview. Then again, she _did_ have a certain assertiveness, a certain ruthless style, that Drakken thought might come in handy once he started stepping up his own operations. He wouldn't be in this house forever, after all. And she had certainly demonstrated her martial arts skills – the only remaining requirement was that she not give him any sass. He decided to remain hopeful about that one.

"First," he said, "we decorate our tree!"


	3. Future

**Future**

XX

There was nothing more disgusting than watching her brothers mow their way through a box of takeout wings from Go City Wings To Go. Madison in particular seemed to have no regard for his own cleanliness, and Susan was always surprised to see that Henry was almost as bad when it came to chicken wings. It was Mego and Hego, Susan had to remind herself – not Madison and Henry anymore. Although even her brothers often forget to refer to each other by their superhero names, since they were still new to the business.

It was a slow night, and Walter and Wendell had begged their oldest brother to go out and get wings for dinner. Henry was keen on remaining in Go Tower at all times to make sure they didn't get any emergency calls on the giant viewing screen the city had just installed for them, as he was always a stickler for responsibility, but Susan had told him to live a little. Now, as she watched her brothers covering their faces with more barbeque sauce than she thought could even be slathered on a single box of wings, she began to regret telling Henry to live a little.

"This was an excellent decision," said Henry as he bit into another wing. Susan heard the sound of the wing's bone crunching and flinched in disgust, but her brother didn't seem to notice or care. "I suppose we can't be out fighting the forces of dastardly destruction every evening, so it's alright to-"

He was cut off by the sound of the viewing screen snapping to life, sending a bright light through the dim control room. The Mayor stared down at them from the screen, taking a moment to recover after seeing his go-to Go family covered in sauce and sitting around a table scattered with chicken bones.

"Sorry to interrupt your dinner," said the Mayor, "but we have an emergency! There's a new supervillain in town, and he's just given us an ultimatum. We must pay him five thousand dollars within the next hour, or he'll rain down destruction on Go City."

"Five thousand dollars?" asked Susan. "That's it?"

The Mayor nodded.

"Okay... well, did he say how he was going to rain down destruction on the city?"

"No, he did not, but I got the feeling he may be a threat. Fortunately I don't have to rely on my corrupt and incompetent police force to solve these problems anymore, do I? Because I have my very own supercharged team of problem solvers!"

The Mayor giggled with glee, at which the Go siblings glanced at each other as they waited patiently for him to continue his briefing.

"He's located on Go Mountain, and he wants us to bring the money there within the hour. But I think it would be better if Team Go went to meet him instead, don't you think?"

"I certainly do," said Henry. "What's this supervillain's name?"

The Mayor's face was replaced by a photo still of a hunchbacked man in a mask and cape, wearing what looked like bird-shaped boots and laughing malevolently. "Aviarius," spoke the Mayor's voice as Team Go looked over their new enemy.

"Sounds like a fowl foe," cracked Henry before withering under the glare of his sister. "Uh, we'll take care of it, Mr. Mayor!"

The Mayor nodded happily as his head returned the viewing screen in place of Aviarius' photo. "Wonderful, wonderful. And by the way, when you detain him, could you stop by city hall before taking him to the police station? I'd like to get a few photos of Team Go keeping their captive subdued, maybe one of myself shaking hands with the rest of you, cuffing Aviarius. Just your standard press release protocol, you understand. And if you succeed, we could have a little celebration afterwards! Lots of Go City movers and shakers invited, that kind of thing. What do you think, Henry?"

Henry stood up from the round control room table, chicken wing sauce still smeared across his face, and gave the Mayor a snappy salute. Susan rolled her eyes. Clearly he was still working on how to act like a superhero. Image was big with Henry. At least, _most_ of the time, Susan noted as she passed him a napkin. The viewing screen went black, and her brothers got up from their meal.

"It's time to teach this scoundrel a lesson!" said Henry. "Shego, Mego, Wegos – to the Go Jet!"

He strode off with a purpose as Susan got up from the table. She made a show of being reluctant, as she had been increasingly annoyed with Henry's go-get-em attitude, but she had to admit that she was intrigued by the appearance of this new enemy.

Henry had brought them to Schmo City a couple of months ago, where he had made a deal with the Mayor and gotten a contract to set up shop in the city as resident superheroes and protectors. The Mayor had kindly renamed the city and provided them with their own tower, jet, and monthly stipend. Not a bad deal at all. Susan got the impression that the mayor saw his very own team of superheroes as a great ticket to boost his sagging popularity and get reelected, and – spurred by the sweet nothings he had been whispering into her older brother's ear since then - Henry was happy to go along for the ride.

Ever since they arrived in the city, however, they had been fighting thugs, crooks, and petty criminals. The occasional competent foe popped up here and there, but generally it was no test for Susan's increasing mastery over her abilities. She could tell her brothers had been getting bored of the small time jobs too. Maybe this Aviarius would be a change from the routine. Not to mention that there was something incredibly familiar about the name, the hunched back, the scrawny figure. Susan definitely wanted to get a closer look at the new player in town.

XX

Another nail chipped as Susan dragged herself up the last crag before reaching their destination. Taking the jet had not been very useful when they still had to climb the mountain to get to Aviarius' lair – hopefully this would not be turning into a trend. She reached down and helped her younger brothers up to the spot they had just reached on Go Mountain, where the ground leveled off briefly before continuing to rise towards the summit above them. They were near the top of the mountain, but judging by the nest of eggs in front of them, Susan knew they had reached the lair.

"Who trespasses in The Nest?" shouted a voice from a small cave nestled in the rock face behind the nest. Aviarius appeared from the darkness, pointing imperiously at his intruders. "Who are you, and more importantly, do you have my five thousand dollars?"

"You should really think about asking for more money next time," said Susan. "Nobody's gonna take your threats seriously if you don't aim higher."

"Yes, but if I only ask for five thousand dollars, wouldn't they be almost certain to pay me?"

Susan paused, wondering if he had a point.

"We're here to stop you!" exclaimed Henry in a thundering voice as he stepped forward. "My name is Hego, and these are the subordinate members of Team Go, here to back me up in stopping your reign of terror! There's nowhere to fly now, Aviarius!"

"What are you talking about? We're on a mountain. I could fly anywhere!"

Susan pondered Aviarius' flying comment and looked at the large eggs in front of her, nestled inside their nest of straw and assorted twigs. She began to wonder something for a moment before deciding it was too stupid to even consider. Fortunately, Madison asked the question for her.

"Are you actually like half-bird or something? And are those your eggs?"

Aviarius laughed raucously. "Does it look like I could squeeze those things out? They're half my body weight! No, they're made out of hollow polystyrene with some texturing and coloring added. Just part of the avian mystique, you see. And I'm not a half-bird either, for your information."

"Hey, just wondering," said Madison sheepishly as his siblings looked askance at him. "I read about some some crazy geneticist in a magazine once, I thought maybe you had some modifications done. It's not that far-fetched."

Shego watched Aviarius and began to realize where she recognized him from. This time, she had a more relevant question to ask.

"Is that you, Avery?"

Susan's brothers gasped at her observation, obviously recognizing their foe almost as soon as she pointed out the resemblance. Aviarius stared at his green-skinned foe for a moment, a malicious smile passing across his own face.

"Yes, I'm Avery. And you, I assume, are Susan Go."

Susan nodded.

"I thought there was something vaguely familiar about you three" - Avery pointed to Susan, Henry, and Madison - "when I saw you climbing up the side of this mountain and waited for you to get to my little nest here. It's been a long time, but it's hard to miss green and purple skin. I see you've got some new suits, as well. It looks like I'm not the only one who's been going through some changes lately!"

"We're superheroes now, Avery," said Henry, "and I'm disappointed to see that instead of growing up from your schoolyard bullying, you've chosen to follow a path that will lead only to prison and tears!"

"Oh please. As if I chose this path! Everyone had me pegged as a bad egg for as long as I could remember. I didn't get the muscle that you have, Henry, so I had to defend myself by being nastier than the others! And once I became a bully, once I became the bad guy, do you think anyone gave me a chance to be anything else? No! Why, do you all remember what they called me in school because of my hooked nose and scrawny arms, when they thought I wasn't listening? _Bird_ man!"

Susan and Madison snorted in unison, and even Henry had to hold a hand to his face, attempting to look serious while suppressing a laugh.

"Ha ha ha," said Aviarius. "Hilarious. I remember you calling me that on a few occasions, Henry."

"It's Hego now, evildoer."

"The point is, I just became the thing that everyone wanted me to become. I fulfilled the destiny that was set out for me, from the beginning, just as you and your siblings were set on a path by that meteor which has taken you to this very place, at this very moment. None of us had any choice!"

"Wrong, Avery."

"It's Aviarius now, do-gooder!"

Henry stepped forward, making sure he didn't accidentally slip and crack the polystyrene eggs, even though they belonged to what he imagined would soon be Team Go's avian arch nemesis.

"We had no choice in getting our powers from that meteor, and I believe it was destiny for us to become the superheroes we are now. But we didn't have to choose to follow our destiny. We could have denied it. It's our choice to do good, to fight people like you, just as it was your choice to let others define you and follow the path of villainy!"

Susan began to tire of Henry's lectures, and she wondered if he even really believed what he was saying. Henry had talked about destiny before, about the necessity for them to use their powers for good as a team. He seemed to have a conviction in the inevitability of what they were doing. And yet here he was, changing his tune. Telling Avery is was all about choice, that he was a villain because he wanted to be. Because he liked it.

"Enough talk," said Henry. "It's time to clip this bird's wings!"

Susan raised an eyebrow at the awkward and somewhat creepy comment from Henry, but she joined her brothers as they attacked. Avery had clearly picked up some of his own moves since they had gone to school together as children, but he was still no match for a united Team Go. After taking a few punches, he let out a strange squawking noise and retreated into his cave.

"Follow him!" shouted Henry. "To the bird cave!"

As Susan descended into the mountain's depths with her brothers, she couldn't help but wonder if all Henry's talk about destiny was just window-dressing. Just something he liked to hear himself saying out loud. When it came down to it, as hypocritical and self-serving as it sounded coming from him, Susan found herself agreeing with what her brother had told their foe. Avery's turn to villainy, her own choice to join Team Go. It was their choice, not destiny. Susan hoped she had made the right one.

XX

A fire was roaring in the family room of Drakken's lair-_cum_-house, and Shego looked out the window as she enjoyed her warm surroundings on a comfortable baby blue couch. Beside her, a window looked out into the front lawn and the neighborhood beyond. Shego noticed that the trees' bare branches were no longer being whipped by the wind; it had died down, and in its place, a few flakes of snow were beginning to fall.

"Done!"

Drakken stepped back after hanging the last ornament from the Christmas tree: a test tube, with a hole drilled in the glass near its top and a hook and string attached for hanging. It was actually filled with some kind of glowing substance, although when Susan had asked what it was, Drakken appeared to have no idea. He stepped back and appraised his handiwork.

"What do you think, um – what was your name again?"

Shego, who had been sitting on the couch for a while after deciding three ornaments was as much help as Drakken would get from her with decorating the tree, looked over his finished work. It wasn't bad as far as trees went, she supposed. "It's Shego," she said. "And I think it's the nerdiest looking tree I've ever seen."

There were maybe three real ornaments hanging on the tree, as far as Shego could tell. The rest were a collection of various sciencey-looking devices and knick knacks. Drakken had dragged them out of storage in some other room of the house while he had asked Shego to hang two stockings from the brick ledge over the fireplace, which read 'Drakken' and 'To Be Determined.' on their fluffy white trimmings. Judging by Drakken's ornaments, he was definitely a supervillain of the mad scientist variety. Shego had to give him credit for realizing that finding someone more physical to help him in his evil schemes was a good idea. They would work well in complementing each other's abilities.

"Why are you in Middleton, anyway?" asked Shego. "This doesn't seem like the kind of place you'd find a lot of blue-skinned supervillains hanging out."

"You'd be surprised," said Drakken. "Middleton, for some reason, has a high concentration of interesting activity going on. There is a headquarters of a secret organization called Global Justice in this town, although I have not determined exactly where it is located.

"Not only that, but the Middleton Space Center is leading the world in some cutting edge technology that I would love to get my hands on. And one of my old college classmates happens to work there. James Possible," said Drakken, his voice lowering into a hiss for a moment. "And he has a daughter, too. With a babysitting website, although I've been getting the vague impression she's up to much more than just babysitting."

"What, like superhero stuff?"

"Perhaps," said Drakken. "We could even end up fighting her one day, once some of my plans come to fruition. It would be poetic, would it not? Fighting the progeny of my ex college friend?"

Shego snorted. "The day you use me to fight one of your old college classmate's brat kids is the day you'll have to find a new sidekick, Drakken. And I think we should talk about the sidekick thing, by the way. Maybe we should make this a partnership."

"Now now," laughed Drakken nervously, "let's not push it, Shego. Any good working relationship needs a heirarchy of command, am I right? Let's be reasonable here!"

Shego narrowed her eyes for a moment, but decided she would hold off before evaluating the nature of her newfound partnership with Drakken. She had just gotten there, after all, and kicked his first hire out of the house upon her arrival, so maybe she could take it easy for a while. Scope things out a little.

"So when am I getting a tour of this house? Or lair - whatever it is?"

"Excellent idea, Shego. Follow me!"

Shego got up from the couch and followed Drakken through the house as he showed her around. It was a house like any other, but she noticed odd-looking doodads and pieces of arcane technology piled haphazardly into corners here and there, and a couple of the rooms were filled with computer stations and beeping, blinking mainframes. Shego wondered how long he had been a supervillain. Why he had chosen his path. She could tell he was working on his supervillain mystique, his personal brand, and hadn't quite gotten it down yet.

Much like Aviarius. She remembered that first fight with Team Go's arch nemesis. He had stood no chance against them, and Shego thought the bird motif was pretty one-note, but at least at the time, she had found Aviarius and his lair interesting. Fascinating, even. Living in a cave on a mountain, taking what he wanted – at least, he would have, if Aviarius had been more competent. Even during that first fight, she had been intrigued by his lifestyle. By the alternative to Team Go. It had taken a long time to rise to the surface since then, but seeing Avery's turn to evil had caused a silent rumble to begin within her. A disturbance, echoing in the depths of Susan Go.

Here in Drakken's house, however, she could already tell that the man had more potential than Aviarius. They weren't even in the same league.

"And here," said Drakken as he led her through the laundry room and opened the door to the garage, "is my hovercraft! Isn't she a charmer?"

Shego's eyes widened at the sight of the strange vehicle parked in the garage. It looked like a flying saucer, its blue chrome surface shining under the garage lights. There was an open cockpit on the top where the hovercraft could be piloted, and Shego was already fighting to resist the urge to jump in and send it tearing out of the garage door.

"I may let you fly it eventually," said Drakken. "Although I will have to train you carefully. It's a complex device, not to be handled by novices."

Shego walked up to the hovercraft and looked over the side into the cockpit. There were about five or six buttons, along with a joystick; it looked like she would figure it out in about five minutes. But she had to admit that she was increasingly glad she had knocked that other sidekick out of the house and taken his place. This Drakken guy had promise.

She had doubted herself many times over the last couple of weeks, doubted whether leaving Team Go had been the right decision. The lack of grounding, having no idea what she was going to do with her future – it had been a trial, to say the least. And there were even times when she missed her brothers. Despite her doubts and her second guesses, however, she knew that she had been growing distant from them for a long time, and she knew that there was no longer any way they could be together. She had grown too different from them. Madison was too whiny, too jealous and passive-aggressive, and Henry was too unyielding. Too devoted to procedure and protocol. More than all that, she was a bad guy now. This was where she belonged.

And yet in some way, even if she could never return, a part of her was still in Go Tower. Team Go was a part of her past, after all, a fold in the fabric of Shego's personality. A piece of her life's puzzle, which might never be completed but was at least beginning to take shape. Despite all that she had been through recently, she felt a certain satisfaction now that her feet were truly on the ground. She almost felt cheery, actually. Maybe she was comfortable enough to get off the ground, just for a little bit.

"Hey Doctor D," she said-

"Drakken, please. It's Doctor Drakken."

"Whatever." Shego made a mental note to call him Doctor D repeatedly in the future. "Can I borrow this hovercraft of yours? I have to go out tonight."

"But you just got here!" pouted Drakken. "How are we supposed to begin building our professional relationship if you disappear as soon as I hire you? We have things to do tonight! It's Christmas Eve!"

"Things? Like what?"

"I was going to make some Cocoa Moo, and there's a _Snowman Han_k marathon on later tonight. It's tradition, Shego!"

Shego groaned. For a mad scientist capable of inventing some of the things she had seen in his house, he seemed to have a real dorky streak. "Look," she said in an attempt to placate him, "I'll be back later tonight – maybe a lot later – but I'm not leaving for good, okay?"

She leaped into the hovercraft's cockpit and pressed what looked like the obvious power button. Sure enough, the engines flared into life, and she felt a rush of exhilaration as the machine lifted off of the garage floor. She swiveled the joystick and turned it front end to the garage door, and once Drakken realized she was going whether he liked it or not, he opened the door to prevent her from bursting through it on her own. Shego looked down at her new employer and gave him a wink.

"Can you go grab my duffel bag from the family room? I just need to do a little shopping."

XX

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through Go Tower, not a creature was stirring – except for Walter and Wendell.

The two of them crept out of their room and made their way stealthily through the tower, trying not to wake up either of their older brothers. They passed through the massive control room, the viewing screen staring down at them in the darkness, and walked past the round planning table towards the other side of the room until they reached another pair of automated sliding doors. The doors were far louder than any noise they were making, but that couldn't be helped. Past the doors was another, smaller room, with some plush blue and purple couches and chairs arranged around a fireplace lined with stockings. A Christmas tree stood in the corner of the room, sheltering a collection of presents, and Walter and Wendell were planning to shake a few of them and guess what was inside. Definitely not open them, though. Not until morning. Or maybe they would just open one each.

The Christmas tree was not the most interesting object in the room, however. Walter and Wendell were far more intrigued by the strange figure standing frozen beside the tree, caught in the act of placing a present beneath its green boughs. An open duffel bag lay on the floor near the tree, and the stranger in question was disguised by a ski mask and black bodysuit.

"Who are you?" asked Walter.

Wendell scratched his head. "Are you Santa Claus?"

Shego stared at her brothers for a moment, shocked that she had been caught red-handed. She had even avoided coming in through the front door, not sure if her brothers would have removed the hand-recognition access that her powers gave her, and climbed down the chimney instead. Apparently, it was not enough. She felt a tug of sadness at seeing her younger brothers, who weren't completely insufferable compared to Hego and Mego; she had been hoping to sneak into Go Tower while getting the fewest possible reminders of her past. She didn't want to get entangled when she was just beginning to move on, after all.

Shego cleared her thoughts and realized they were waiting for an answer. "Santa?" she asked, before looking down at the black bodysuit she was wearing. Apparently, neither she nor her older siblings had done a very good job of explaining Santa Claus to the twins, she thought. Either that or they thought it was normal for Santa to go incognito as he passed out his Christmas presents.

"Yeah. You got it, I'm Santa alright."

"Awesome!" said Wendell and Walter as they gave each other a high five.

"Now get out of here and let Santa do her job, or you're both gonna get thrown in this duffel bag and dropped out of my sleigh onto the North Pole."

"Yes Santa! We'll be good!"

Her twin brothers scampered away as Shego resumed taking the presents out of her duffel bag and placed them under the Christmas tree. It had not taken long to get the presents she wanted once she found a store that was still open – a Smarty Mart, unsurprisingly - as she had already had her gifts in mind before she ended up leaving her brothers. The Smarty Mart had even been running a last-minute sale, but Shego did not need sales. She got her presents 100% off. Going to Go City itself had been a short trip as well, since Drakken's hovercraft went at insane speeds and had an extending glass cockpit cover for cold weather.

Once she finished putting the presents under the tree, she would be leaving Go Tower again. She had no idea if she would ever be back. But back at Drakken's house, she had been caught by a rare moment of Christmas cheer. Perhaps this was her way of saying goodbye to Team Go.

XX

Hego tried to brush his teeth a little faster as his little brothers banged impatiently on his bedroom door. He knew they wanted to open their presents, but they knew they had to wait for him in order to do that. Mego too, although Hego knew that Madison was not much for Christmas cheer. Neither was Shego, he reflected. But it still hurt to know that she would not be there with them, for the first time in as long as he could remember.

He finished brushing his teeth, put on his blue robe, and opened the door. "Alright already," he told his brothers. "Is Mego up yet?"

"Yeah, he's waiting on the couch," said Walter. "He said you take so long to get up that you're like a hibernating bear."

"That I am," laughed Hego heartily. "That I am!"

The Wegos grabbed him by the hands and dragged him impatiently through Go Tower until they reached the family room, which was no small accomplishment when they were a fraction of his size and strength. Hego saw Mego sitting on the couch with a surly expression on his face, arms folded across his chest. The Wegos wasted no time in leaping down beneath the tree and pulling out presents, throwing the ones that weren't theirs haphazardly towards their two older brothers.

"We saw Santa last night," Wendell said.

Hego smiled and gave Mego an amused expression, at which Mego shrugged indifferently in reply.

"That's swell," he told the Wegos. "You two sure have an active imagination."

The Go brothers began to open their presents, and even Mego was moved enough by the potential for loot that he got off the couch and crouched down on the floor in order to unwrap his own gifts. Before long, Hego came across a nondescript package that he did not recognize, wrapped in what looked like a copy of yesterday's newspaper. He ripped off the newspaper and opened the box inside, revealing a pair of shiny new dumbells.

"Look at these babies!" he exclaimed as he held the weights up. "Just what I wanted!"

Mego looked critically at his brother's present. "Don't you have that weight already?"

"No," said Hego, "or I did, but Shego threw them out a window about six months ago, remember? After an argument we had in the gym. I never got around to buying them again."

Mego didn't really care, and he returned his attention to the present he was opening. Inside was a box of coal. "What the heck is this all about?" he shouted, clearly not amused.

Hego couldn't help but laugh at the sight of the coal, but he noticed something green poking out from the black bricks. "What's that?" he asked.

Mego pulled a soot-coated wad of money out from between the coals.

"Whoa - twenty bucks! Now there's a sensible, rational gift!"

The Wegos found a present addressed to the both of them and tore off the newspaper, opening their own box to find a single present within. Hego watched the two them as they stared at their present in awe.

"What did you get, Wegos?"

Walter was about to hold up the present, but Wendell grabbed it from him, prompting Walter to get up and push him. Wendell pushed back, and they began to roll around wildly as they fought over their gift.

"It's mine!" Walter yelled.

"No way! It's mine! Clearly it was meant for me!"

Hego hadn't even been able to get a good glimpse of the gift, although it looked like it had been some kind of electronic gaming device. Whatever it was, there was only one, and clearly his younger brothers were in no mood for sharing. Normally Hego would have admonished them for fighting on Christmas morning, but at the moment, he was far more intrigued by the presents they had gotten. He knew he hadn't wrapped any presents in newspaper. And it was something Mego might choose to wrap them in, but Mego didn't usually get them gifts. Hego picked a card off the floor which had been attached to his newspaper-wrapped gift and opened it up, reading the inside.

_To Henry_, it said. _From Santa._

So it was an anonymous gift. Or maybe not so anonymous.

Hego happened to recognize the sparkling green ink written on the card. He even remembered the green, plastic goblin-tipped pen that it was written with. It was remarkable that pen still wrote, he thought. The last couple of weeks had been hard for him, ever since his sister left Team Go – wondering if she could ever come back, realizing on some level that she would not, that she had been drifting away for a long time. Wondering if he was to blame. But maybe Shego was not completely gone, after all.

His brothers were too busy enjoying their own gifts to hear him, but Hego looked up at nothing in particular and spoke in a soft voice. He knew she would not hear his words. But, if he was lucky, the spirit behind them would travel farther than words ever could.

"Merry Christmas, Susan."

XX

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_**Notes** - That's it! I was originally going to upload this on Christmas Eve but I figured nobody would be reading then, and I was busy celebrating Christmas Eve myself anyway, hehe. But here it is. After the last few holiday stories I've uploaded, I don't know - maybe the holidays are just a bad time to post things and hope for reviews, or maybe my stories are getting worse without me even noticing it. Not that I'm whining. Well okay, I am just a little bit. :-p But thanks to those who have reviewed and happy holidays!_


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